


The Past is a Foreign Galaxy

by idiotsammich (god_is_undead)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Excessive amounts of naval terminology, FN-2187 is too good for this world, Fan room doesn't mean anything to do with fans of the series, Fan rooms, Hux doesn’t have enough cigarras to deal with this shit, Hux is a sassy little shit, I can’t tag, M/M, Phasma is the adult in the room, Rating May Change, Ren is just a little shit, Save Me, Shenanigans, Slow Build, Slow To Update, Sorry Not Sorry, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Senate isn’t The Senate yet, The author wishes she could just write normal shit, Warnings May Change, What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar, and by sweet I mean the always pleasant scent of rotting corpses, but we’re going to try anyway, crackalicious crackdom, kylo ren kidnaps a child, my external hard drive is in reality a weird graveyard, politics by any other name would smell as sweet, read the notes, the Senate is bureaucratic AF, the closest we’re likely to get to romance is kylux development hell, the first order is so not ready for the republic either tbf, the republic is so not ready for the first order, well that’s lovely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-21 12:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11357187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/god_is_undead/pseuds/idiotsammich
Summary: The last thing General Hux thought would happen when he woke up that morning was that the Finalizer would in a matter of minutes be swallowed up by an anomaly in space and emerge around the time of the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo.Some asshole divided by zero.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> I sort of feel bad for starting all these fics at the same time but…nah, I can’t read just one book at a time either. Plus, I need to stop finding junk I wrote months ago buried in the pile of junk I wrote months ago. But most people I see doing time travel fics have some kind of direct generational connection; this one...doesn't? Based on the phrase "the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there."
> 
> It’s official. I’m slowly losing my fucking mind this summer. I also need to stop being such trash in general, but whatever. Besh is the second letter of the Aurebesh alphabet thing. Yeah. **Glossary for the naval shit at the end.**
> 
> Ps, this wasn’t originally supposed to be kylux, but… _you know who you are you did this to me fuck you_.

_“So, what you're telling me, is that if you guys turn this thing on, there's a chance you could destroy existence?"_

_"Yep."_

_“How much of a chance are we talking, like..."_

_"Slightly higher than impossible."_

_“Uh-huh. So why turn this thing on?”_

_“_ For science! _”_

_“...God help us; we’re in the hands of engineers.”_

* * *

 

 

General Armitage Hux's day began, like it always did (if no crisis had befallen the _Finalizer_ that demanded his input during his short hours of repose), at 0400.

The alarm jarred him from a dreamless sleep. Hux was ready, as always, within ten minutes, pressed and polished. Within twenty minutes of waking he was reviewing messages that had been sent to his personal datapad overnight; each department was required to make at least one report, reviewing the activities that had occurred between his disappearance from and reappearance on the bridge over every besh-shift, which he did over black caf, toast, and marmalade.

Most of them were routine communiques which said nothing more consequential than _all conditions normal_. One or two were worthy of closer consideration, but all things considered, it could have been worse this morning.

It could always have been worse.

Case in point: Kylo Ren could have destroyed another console with another one of his infantile tantrums. That would have ruined his day, full stop, because he would have had to spend the whole first half rehanging the stars to deal with it. Hux didn’t care that Leader Snoke actively encouraged Ren to vent his anger on his surroundings—to kriffing hell with that, Hux had a ship to keep in working order. How could he be expected to fight the Republic if Ren had done half their job for them?

The _Finalizer_ 's crew had, if not adjusted to the inevitability of these outbursts, then resigned themselves to the futility of fighting the reality that they were trapped helpless inside a box hurtling through the cold vacuum of space with a moody rathtar, but Hux himself was always faced with a mountain of paperwork whenever these precious episodes played themselves out. Some clever bastard had got their hands on one of Supply Department’s forms and modified it to include _enhanced percussive therapy_ on the list of possible explanations for why a piece of equipment needed to be replaced, with a range of intensities of the usual bureaucratically stuffy bend; from a command perspective, Hux had made the obligatory noises about finding this individual and punishing them for their lack of discretion and respect (which he then promptly “forgot” to follow up on), but from a personal perspective, he had one buried in his datapad, hidden behind an unsuspecting filename.

It was the little things.

He left his stateroom at 0445 and arrived at the bridge just before 0500. The command passageways were virtually empty at this hour, and even the bridge was still operating on the besh-shift skeleton crew. There was no one else on the command walkway as Hux strode inside. The officers at their consoles below greeted him per regulation, little more than murmured _good morning sir_ s, but beyond that everything was very still.

If Hux had a favorite time of day, this came close: this calm before the storm, so full of anticipation. He stopped at the crux of the command pathway at the nose of the bridge, and looked out. In contrast to the glossy black and holographic blue readouts of her bridge, the _Finalizer_ was a jagged dagger of bleached white bone against a vast sea of matte black and stars stretched out before him, lethal grace.

 _His_ ship. Every square micrometer of it and all aboard were his responsibility. His chest filed with pride at the thought. Soon Starkiller Base would be complete as well. No longer would the First Order skulk at the edge of the galaxy and the hated Republic.

He took a deep breath and let it out.

The rest of the morning remained almost eerily routine. He oversaw a TIE exercise. He was notified of a small fire in an aft galley that was quickly extinguished. He was reminded that he would need to hold forth with non-judicial punishment tomorrow at 1100 for a crewmember found intoxicated on duty; he briefly considered closing the ship’s bar for a matter of days to remind the crew just how fugitive their privileges were, and that abuse would not be tolerated.

In the early afternoon, Hux received reports from Starkiller Base in his office, detailing the receipt of some of the last pieces of materiel. Some final few tests of its internal systems were all that stood between Starkiller Base and completion; Hux was still toying fitfully with the speech he planned to give. He indulged a few minutes in deciding whether he really believed _acquiesces to disorder_ was sufficient—maybe _permits disorder_ —or just throwing the whole phrase out, and replacing it with something around the word _pretensions of_ or _purports to_ —

His comlink buzzed, and he answered it.

“General Hux. Go ahead.”

“Sir—” Hux recognized Lieutenant Mitaka's voice, “—Your presence is requested on the bridge.”

“What is it?”

“We…we don't know, sir.”

Well, wasn't that just charming. Ren could have decided upon an even greater self-proclaimed talent for himself in postmodern art all over the walls of Hux's ship than he currently fancied, and Hux could do nothing but anticipate its discovery whilst calculating the length of time his antacid stores could be expected to hold out.

“You don't know?” he asked, sharply.

“It’s— _sir_. ComScan has no idea what it is. Please—”

“I’ll be there straightaway,” Hux said, vaguely annoyed at the interruption, but rose from behind his desk and strode out briskly. His office was just inside the neck of the command passageway that led to the bridge, and he was there in minutes, heels clicking with a satisfying authority.

Mitaka stood by the gunnery console and it was to him whom Hux went first; Mitaka had been given the conn while Hux was in his office and he stood ready to report, earnest but clearly unnerved.

“General,” Mitaka said. “It’s off the starboard side.”

“ _What_ is off the starboard side, Lieutenant,” Hux asked firmly. He hated ambiguities, they were useless. He did not tolerate it in his officer staff.

“It’s— _nothing_ , sir. ComScan can’t detect anything in that sector. It’s as if there’s a void in space.”

Space, of course, wasn’t really empty; all outer space bore ionized atomic nuclei and other particles, or cosmic dust, or frequencies from background radiation. Ancient spacefarers had used the composition of vacuum to navigate, although Hux didn't exactly know how himself. He did know that actual voids simply did not exist.

“And it’s _growing_ , sir.”

“Growing?” Hux echoed, incredulously. He broke off the conversation and went to stand over the ComScan console; Mitaka followed at a respectful distance. Lieutenant Ivvers glanced up at Hux and straightened, just below Hux’s toes in the crew pit. “What have you to report, Lieutenant?”

Ivvers had the good sense to look ashamed of himself. “General, I’m not sure what to tell you. Our systems don’t recognize it—or else there really is nothing. But it’s moving, like it’s organic.”

Hux blinked in frustration, one gloved hand inside the other behind his back; he clenched the innermost. The one structural problem with command walkways and crew pits that Hux had found was the inability to look at the readouts closely without going down there himself. The basic premise had been in use at least since the Clone Wars, and the design was meant to keep each part of this well-oiled military machine focused on their part—he was not distracted by their consoles and could stand above, receive information, and lead, while those in the pits were not distracted by his immediate presence—

“Lieutenant!” the Ensign seated at the console cried out. “It’s—it’s moving towards us! Rapidly!”

Ivvers turned and bent over the console. “What?” He straightened again, sputtering. “General, the anomaly is heading straight for us off the starboard side! And—it’s coming _fast!_ ”

Hux moved quickly to the nearest viewport on the rightmost side of the bridge and looked out; he could see, at a distance and growing visibly larger—in open space, the scales at which expansion was occurring must have been exponential—

“Sir!” someone pleaded in alarm.

Hux made the decision quickly. This was happening too fast and he had no intention of sticking around to see what it was first.

“Helm; full rise both planes, _flank speed!_ ” Hux barked, striding along the starboard-side viewing gallery quickly as he turned his face to watch for the expanding anomaly. “Get us clear!” In a matter of mere seconds, it had spread wide enough that it outstripped the length of the _Finalizer_ fore to aft. He heard the helmsman snapping orders behind him.

The _Finalizer_  pitched and yawed starboard with alarming suddenness, and trembled mightily beneath his feet, engines roaring like a great beast enchained as she struggled to break free. It must have been some kind of gravitational well, which apparently ComScan had also missed. _Brilliant_. Hux lost his footing when something went wrong with the on-board gravity generators; he had the sense to slide down onto his hip and catch himself. He slammed onto the durasteel with the heels of his boots hard enough to rattle his teeth, fighting a weight pulling him in that made it hard to breathe, but he managed to keep himself upright.

Hux found himself staring into a pulsing, ink-blotch stain of _nothing_ between his feet into which the rightmost edge of the _Finalizer_ had already vanished and within seconds the rest sank, progressively, eating towards him. _My ship!_ He stood fine, others were not so lucky; detritus slid out of its place and crashed on the floor, a console exploded into sparks. A falling datapad clipped his cap off his head and both clattered onto the viewport. At least one person screamed in fear and pain, shrill and piercing. **_DO_** _. SOMETHING_. Hux made himself draw in a breath; despite the cold knot of fear that hardened in his gut he _had_ to maintain authority. This had all happened so fast, in a matter of minutes, but—“ _To hell with a course, make the jump to hyperspace_ —”

His command was lost to his own ears in an unaccountable keening rush that deafened him, and he felt freezing cold and burning hot—similar to what he had read of exposure to vacuum if he had to put a sensation to it. He saw the black bleed through the transparisteel and the durasteel itself, and envelop his feet, his calves—when it made it to his waist, Hux grit his teeth and recoiled, though he had no way of crawling up the smooth walkway to one of the crew pits or anywhere to go once he got there. It felt like nothing and pain at once, a phantasm in-between. If he tried to focus on it, it fled, but as soon as he did—

When he was swallowed up to his throat, he pulled his head back, trying desperately to stay above. It took him whole.


	2. OMAKE - "Fight the Ship"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren applies his own unique spin on words.
> 
> If he knew, Hux probably wouldn't find it the least bit funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Class was fucking dull today so here this is; I think it's hilarious...but then again I probably have a fucked up sense of humor. So, for what it's worth. More abuse of naval jargon for fun reasons. Enjoy.

_One shift, very early during Kylo Ren’s time on the_ Finalizer _and with the First Order..._

“Here we are, sir; these are the fire extinguishers that damage control uses to fight the ship. These are the ones we'll be inspecting.” 

Somehow Kylo Ren had been roped into a ‘scheduled point material inspection’ or ‘spot check’ through a chain of events he couldn’t really put back together right now. But he did remember that General Hux had said he needed to get to know the _Finalizer_ as an "operational organism, not just as a staging platform." So he had been passed off and here he was. Kylo perked up suddenly, if invisibly; _fight the ship?_ What a weird thing to say.

“There's more than one kind,” Kylo pointed out, flatly. But there were and he didn’t know what that was about.

Chief Lillit’s mouth broke into a wide grin. He spoke more than the Ensign next to him who looked as young as Kylo was under his mask. “Of course, sir. That’s because we have multiple kinds of fires aboard this ship. Class Aurek fires—”

_There’s more than one kind of fire?_  In the next ten minutes he would learn that each one had a special way to fight it and you didn’t want to kriff it up because using the wrong way to fight the wrong kind of fire made it worse. 

Ren remembered his childhood on the Millennium Falcon had involved lots of fires. His father— _no_ , Snoke wanted him to start thinking of that man as something other than his father, to underline his assumption of the identity and name and title of Kylo Ren— _Han Solo’s_  maintenance, or the half-baked quick fixes he jimmied to life, almost made that a given. Kylo did not remember any procedures this complicated. Had Solo had some kind of all-purpose extinguisher?

What his mind settled on in this storm instead, because it was simple enough and not a long list of confusing new details in which he got very lost, was _fight the ship_. The crew literally fought the ship?

Hux wanted Kylo to think of himself as part of the ship’s crew—apart, though technically equal to Hux’s authority himself, but—?

That gave him an idea. Luke Skywalker had preached the Jedi's abstinence and considered the inability to do that a dangerous and disappointing failure; the Sith method of meditated internalization of one's own anger was too close to the Jedi’s limiting emotionlessness, and it was that weakness of the Sith philosophy which had failed his grandfather.

Snoke wanted him to act out his anger when he felt it and as a Knight of Ren he was expected to engage and satisfy his emotional urges, to be as far from expressions of the Light as possible. Kylo should do his part as part of the First Order to  _fight the ship_ like the crew did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kylo stahp.
> 
> **Fight the ship:** It doesn’t mean literally beat the poor ship ( _Kylo_ ), it means something like using the ship to fight. It's a bit of weird specialized turn of phrase that almost likens the people aboard the ship to the ship itself.
> 
> I swear to god I'm actually working on things. And please, if you have any further questions about anything don't hesitate to ask. :)

**Author's Note:**

> And no, magical deus-ex-machina-OCs are not going to drop from the sky to fix fuck all. There is a point to the opening of the fic but it's not relevant for a loooong fucking time and then is only tangentially relevant. 
> 
> Teeeeeechnically the command for “floor it and haul ass or we’re gonna die” in sub-lingo is “Ahead flank, cavitate” but there are no propellers on Star Destroyers to cavitate anything and god knows I've probably confused people as it is and the actual processes for giving commands on submarines are really rather complicated and...no thank you. So, we’re using the target sorry I mean surface ship terminology for the most part, which is flank speed—and full rise both planes means go up for subs, which is that 3rd dimension surface ships can't operate in. Yay. 
> 
> Ps, it’s not at all unreasonable for Hux to consider closing the ship’s bar temporarily. Collective punishment is a thing in the military, although we can so totally argue about how useful it is. I think it can be stupid and do more to hurt morale, but the idea is making the whole responsible for the actions of one and thus interested in keeping the one on the straight and narrow. It has logical grounding, but it can be abused. We can also debate how much I hate that a teetotaler got liquor banned on US military ships in 1914 (no more rum rations) and thereafter every sailor got dangerously smashed at every opportunity because teaching abstinence is a sanctimonious, stupid idea and treating something like forbidden fruit by the culture at large directing policy creates complexes. But that’s what happens when you have evangelicals telling other people what to do. Fun times.
> 
> Oh great that turned into a rant, sorry.
> 
>  **Ship to shore translation guide** (I'll stick to the more common or obvious ones in writing, since if I go all out I'm scared people are going to have a hard time reading, but here you go anyway just for fun; this list is by no means exhaustive):  
>  Starboard: right  
> Port: left (fun fact: also larboard, but that is archaic; larboard's etymology is essentially 'loading side'; ships dock on the port, left, side and load there, because on old ships the steering rudder used to be on the right, so 'steering side' which is the etymology of starboard...bet you didn't come here for trivia like that though)  
> Fore/forward: directional, front (forward seems more common in speech as in "go forward"; fore is used mostly in the expression fore and aft)  
> Bow: the front end  
> Forecastle or focsle (regardless it's pronounced, at least in AE, fohk-sul): forwardmost area of the uppermost deck  
> Aft: directional, back  
> Stern: the back end  
> Fantail: deck at the stern  
> Bulkhead: wall  
> Overhead: ceiling  
> Deck: floor (I feel like everyone knows this one)  
> Head: toilet/bathroom  
> Galley: Kitchen  
> Reefer: Big-ass walk-in refrigerator, where they put food and dead bodies if there are any (that's not a typo)  
> Mess deck (it's not a hall on a ship): where enlisted eat  
> Wardroom: where officers eat; 'officer's mess' in a naval sense usually seemed to be used in a metaphorical sense to refer to the officer community that ate/socialized/coordinated in the wardroom  
> Berthing: living space area...usually refers to quarters for enlisted; that works out to "packed in like motherfucking sardines"  
> Stateroom: officer quarters; at most 8 to a room, senior officers have their own stateroom  
> Space: Generally replaces room...its a nebulous term, but you don't use room, except in one single exception...  
> Passageway or p-way: hallway, essentially  
> Non-judicial punishment: this is basically when you get sent up in front of the captain to answer for some shit you did and they decide your punishment. So named because there is no jury  
> Fan room: small spaces on ships with shit in it that are usually isolated; in decades past were used to beat someone's ass for fucking up, i.e., fan room discipline. Mmmyes, fan room discipline.


End file.
